Plutarch: Trending quotes (page 7)

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“If it were not my purpose to combine foreign things with things Greek, to traverse and civilize every continent, to search out the uttermost parts of land and sea, to push the bounds of Macedonia to the farthest Ocean, and to disseminate and shower the blessings of Greek justice and peace over every nation, I should not content to sit quietly in the luxury of idle power, but I should emulate the frugality of Diogenes. But as things are, forgive me Diogenes, that I imitate Herakles, and emulate Perseus, and follow in the footsteps of Dionysos, the divine author and progenitor of my family, and desire that victorious Greeks should dance again in India and revive the memory of the Bacchic revels among the savage mountain tribes beyond the Kaukasos…”

Plutarch book Moralia

On the Fortune of Alexander, I, 332A Loeb, F.C Babbitt
Moralia, Others

Family , Peace , Justice , Search

“A soldier told Pelopidas, "We are fallen among the enemies." Said he, "How are we fallen among them more than they among us?"”

Plutarch

63 Pelopidas
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“King Agis said, "The Lacedæmonians are not wont to ask how many, but where the enemy are."”

Plutarch

58 Agis
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

“As it is in the proverb, played Cretan against Cretan.”

Plutarch

Life of Lysander
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Diogenes the Cynic, when a little before his death he fell into a slumber, and his physician rousing him out of it asked him whether anything ailed him, wisely answered, "Nothing, sir; only one brother anticipates another,—Sleep before Death."”

Plutarch

Consolation to Apollonius

Death , Sleep

“Be ruled by time, the wisest counsellor of all.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Parallel Lives, Pericles

Time

“He was a man, which, as Plato saith, is a very inconstant creature.”

Plutarch

On the Tranquillity of the Mind
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“Medicine, to produce health, has to examine disease; and music, to create harmony, must investigate discord.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Demetrius, sec. 1
Parallel Lives

Health , Disease , Music

“Socrates said, "Bad men live that they may eat and drink, whereas good men eat and drink that they may live."”

Plutarch

How a Young Man ought to hear Poems, 4
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Men , Drink

“These Macedonians," said he, "are a rude and clownish people, that call a spade a spade.”

Plutarch

39 Philip
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

People

“Valour, however unfortunate, commands great respect even from enemies: but the Romans despise cowardice, even though it be prosperous.”

Plutarch book Parallel Lives

Aemilius, sec. 26
Parallel Lives

“When men are arrived at the goal, they should not turn back.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Moralia, Of the Training of Children

Men

“A traveller at Sparta, standing long upon one leg, said to a Lacedæmonian, "I do not believe you can do as much." "True," said he, "but every goose can."”

Plutarch

Remarkable Speeches
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Travel

“It is a difficult task, O citizens, to make speeches to the belly, which has no ears.”

Plutarch

Life of Marcus Cato
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

“When he was wounded with an arrow in the ankle, and many ran to him that were wont to call him a god, he said smiling, "That is blood, as you see, and not, as Homer saith, ‘such humour as distils from blessed gods.'"”

Plutarch

43 Alexander
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

God , Smile

“As Athenodorus was taking his leave of Cæsar, "Remember," said he, "Cæsar, whenever you are angry, to say or do nothing before you have repeated the four-and-twenty letters to yourself."”

Plutarch

Cæsar Augustus
Roman Apophthegms

“Themistocles being asked whether he would rather be Achilles or Homer, said, "Which would you rather be,—a conqueror in the Olympic games, or the crier that proclaims who are conquerors?"”

Plutarch

48 Themistocles
Apophthegms of Kings and Great Commanders

Game

“It was the saying of Bion, that though the boys throw stones at frogs in sport, yet the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest.”

Plutarch

Which are the most crafty, Water or Land Animals?, 7
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Boy , Sport

“For to err in opinion, though it be not the part of wise men, is at least human.”

Plutarch book Moralia

Against Colotes
Moralia, Others

Men , Parting

“The correct analogy for the mind is not a vessel that needs filling, but wood that needs igniting — no more — and then it motivates one towards originality and instills the desire for truth. Suppose someone were to go and ask his neighbors for fire and find a substantial blaze there, and just stay there continually warming himself: that is no different from someone who goes to someone else to get to some of his rationality, and fails to realize that he ought to ignite his own flame, his own intellect, but is happy to sit entranced by the lecture, and the words trigger only associative thinking and bring, as it were, only a flush to his cheeks and a glow to his limbs; but he has not dispelled or dispersed, in the warm light of philosophy, the internal dank gloom of his mind.”

Plutarch book Moralia

οὐ γὰρ ὡς ἀγγεῖον ὁ νοῦς ἀποπληρώσεως ἀλλ' ὑπεκκαύματος μόνον ὥσπερ ὕλη δεῖται ὁρμὴν ἐμποιοῦντος εὑρετικὴν καὶ ὄρεξιν ἐπὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν. ὥσπερ οὖν εἴ τις ἐκ γειτόνων πυρὸς δεόμενος, εἶτα πολὺ καὶ λαμπρὸν εὑρὼν αὐτοῦ καταμένοι διὰ τέλους θαλπόμενος, οὕτως εἴ τις ἥκων λόγου μεταλαβεῖν πρὸς ἄλλον οὐχ οἴεται δεῖν φῶς οἰκεῖον ἐξάπτειν καὶ νοῦν ἴδιον, ἀλλὰ χαίρων τῇ ἀκροάσει κάθηται θελγόμενος, οἷον ἔρευθος ἕλκει καὶ γάνωμα τὴν δόξαν ἀπὸ τῶν λόγων, τὸν δ᾽ ἐντὸς: εὐρῶτα τῆς ψυχῆς καὶ ζόφον οὐκ ἐκτεθέρμαγκεν οὐδ᾽ ἐξέωκε διὰ φιλοσοφίας.
On Listening to Lectures, Plutarch, Moralia 48C (variously called De auditione Philosophorum or De Auditu or De Recta Audiendi Ratione)
Moralia, Others

Truth , Motivation , Thinking , Light